Category: Corporate Governance

The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) have received formal submissions (Submissions) on Consultation Paper 52-404 – Approach to Director and Audit Committee Member Independence (Consultation Paper) from 27 commentators, ranging from public companies, large investors, governance commentators, professional bodies and practitioners at law firms, among others, with several Submissions representing the collective views of numerous contributing organizations. The Consultation Paper considers…

March was once again a busy month this year for corporate and securities law developments, with the publishing of staff notices by the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX), the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) and Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA), as well as developments regarding proposed amendments to the Canada Business Corporations Act (CBCA) that continued to make their way through the legislative…

Directors of Quebec insurers, trust and savings companies and deposit institutions will have increased duties regarding the development and enforcement of “sound commercial practices” and “sound and prudent management practices” in order to comply with new regulations enacted by Bill 141. The bill, titled An Act mainly to improve the regulation of the financial sector, the protection of deposits of…

The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) recently published CSA Multilateral Staff Notice 58-309 Staff Review of Women on Boards and in Executive Officer Positions – Compliance with NI 58-101 Disclosure of Corporate Governance Practices (Notice). The Notice continues the review, for a third year, of “comply or explain” disclosure provided by non-venture public companies concerning the representation of women on boards…

On October 5, 2017, Quebec’s Minister of Finance Carlos Leitão (Minister) introduced Bill 141, An Act mainly to improve the regulation of the financial sector, the protection of deposits of money and the operation of financial institutions (Bill) in the National Assembly, a much anticipated omnibus bill that is meant to improve the framework of Quebec’s financial sector and strengthen…

On March 9, 2017, the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) published Staff Notice 51-348 Staff’s Review of Social Media Used by Reporting Issuers (Staff Notice), which reported on the social media disclosure (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram and GooglePlus postings, amongst others, as well as disclosure on issuers’ own websites, including any message boards or blogs hosted on such sites) of…

With the recent release of proposed regulations (Regulations), the Government of Canada has put some meat on the bones of the proposed changes to the Canada Business Corporations Act (CBCA) that were contained in Bill C-25 (Bill), which was released in the fall of 2016. In large measure, the Regulations continue the trend seen in the Bill of aligning the…

On September 28, 2016, the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) published CSA Multilateral Staff Notice 58-308 – Staff Review of Women on Boards and in Executive Officer Positions – Compliance with NI 58-101 Disclosure of Corporate Governance Practices (Notice). The Notice continues the review, for a second year, of “comply or explain” disclosure provided by non-venture public companies in Manitoba, New…

On September 14, 2016, the Alberta Securities Commission (ASC) published for comment proposed amendments to National Instrument 58-101 – Disclosure of Corporate Governance Practices and Form 8-101F1 – Corporate Governance Disclosure that establish disclosure requirements regarding the representation of women on boards of directors and in executive officer positions of non-venture issuers as well as with respect to term limits…